S1: A listener production.
S2: Welcome to Crime Insider's forensics. For those joining us for
S2: the first time. My name's Catherine Fox. I'm a former GP,
S2: crime author and screenwriter. I'm enthralled by forensics and have
S2: spent thousands of hours researching for books and screenplays. So
S2: I thought, why not turn my research into a podcast?
S2: Every week you'll be joining me in discovering how forensic
S2: science is helping solve high profile crimes in Australia and
S2: around the world. This week how CCTV footage can lead
S2: to convictions, but also miscarriages of justice.
S3: Unless you can prove it scientifically, you can't really make
S3: that claim. And that was the fallacy of individualization. If
S3: you can't prove it scientifically, don't use it.
S2: Professor Glenn Porter is an expert in the field of
S2: forensic photography. He spent decades taking photos, analyzing them and
S2: presenting them as evidence in court.
S3: So it's very much a filmic visual narrative that crime
S3: scene operatives work on.
S2: It's easy to think that video and photographic evidence is
S2: the smoking gun and the slam dunk for a conviction,
S2: but it's actually far more complicated and not as clear
S2: cut as you might think. You'll hear from Glenn about
S2: how photos can be extremely helpful, but also can sometimes
S2: hinder a case for the prosecution. Glenn's taking us back
S2: to a high profile double murder.
S3: Peter Johnson was accused of murdering a couple at Cadi.
S3: The police facts allege that Mr. Johnson tortured these two
S3: people to get their Pin number, and then went around
S3: ATMs extracting money. Now, there was an ATM in Windsor,
S3: in western New South Wales, where the CCTV captured what
S3: police allege. Mr. Johnson taking the money out. But the
S3: quality of the CCTV was quite poor and you could
S3: see by the footage that Mr. Johnson was aware that
S3: there was a camera there. He did what I would
S3: call a recce. He walked past and noticed that the
S3: camera was there. So when he was extracting the money,
S3: he held up what looked like a white handkerchief or
S3: something like that over his face, so his face couldn't
S3: be identified. So police had the details of the ATM,
S3: obviously the account of the deceased, um, there was a
S3: slight time difference between the ATM and the CCTV timestamp,
S3: but that's that's fairly normal. The technology never lines up
S3: all the time, but the couple were dead in their
S3: home at that time that the money was extracted. You
S3: saw this person extracting the money. The police went and
S3: interviewed two people, his ex-wife and a friend of Mr. Johnson,
S3: and showed them the CCTV footage, which they were able
S3: to then identify Mr. Johnson through that video footage or
S3: the CCTV footage. When it came to Mr. Johnson's trial,
S3: I gave evidence for for the defence on the issues
S3: that may occur because in both of the statements and
S3: their oral evidence, they said they couldn't identify Mr. Johnson
S3: from his face because he was covering his face and
S3: it was fairly grainy, fairly poor quality. But they could
S3: recognise or identify Mr. Johnson through the way he walked.
S3: Now the problem I had with that, from an evidential perspective,
S3: I'm I'm not doubting what they claim, but the issue
S3: there from a technical perspective, was that the CCTV was
S3: shot around two frames a second, which results in a
S3: very jagged, animated type of motion. It's certainly not a
S3: natural motion, which is around 30 frames per second. So
S3: I was tasked to explain to the court how this
S3: could be misleading. The motion isn't a natural motion, so
S3: to make some form of recognition or identification could be dangerous.
S3: I gave my evidence and Judge Anthony Wheely very good.
S3: Supreme Court judge asked me a question. He said. So,
S3: doctor Porter, are you referring to a situation similar to
S3: a Charlie Chaplin film?
S2: The silent movies.
S3: The silent movies where the movement is quite animated, jerky
S3: and not natural?
S2: Well, that's probably because back then the silent films were
S2: recorded at about 16 to 18 frames per second. And
S2: I think for people to understand, it's almost like one
S2: of those flip books. So we used to draw as kids,
S2: you know, a whole thing of papers in a, in
S2: a book, in a corner, and then you can get
S2: your own little cartoon going. So it's easy to then
S2: understand in that context why this gentleman's gait would have
S2: appeared quite odd.
S3: And that distortion, I don't know how much it would
S3: affect their ability to make that judgment. That's that's not
S3: my call. But what was interesting, too, is, uh, Judge
S3: Whaley also instructed the jury, um, as a result of
S3: another Supreme Court matter, uh, Tang, he instructed the jury
S3: that the evidence given by the two witnesses is not
S3: identification evidence, but recognition evidence that they recognize Mr. Johnson
S3: on the video.
S2: The difference between thinking they recognize and identifying correctly. There
S2: seems to be a very big gap between the two.
S2: Just as a layperson.
S3: Yes. And there's a couple of distinctions. I mean, in
S3: facial identification, there's a distinction between facial recognition software, which
S3: enables a search of a database, and it gets to
S3: a what they call a recognized level. But to go
S3: the step to identification, it needs a forensic expert that's
S3: trained in facial identification to be able to make that
S3: claim a little bit like a fingerprint. They were used
S3: the automatic fingerprint identification system, Aphis or Nifrs, and to
S3: do a search of the fingerprint that they might have
S3: found in the crime scene, the AI or the computer
S3: technology can do a search of thousands in the database,
S3: but it's actually the forensic examiner that actually takes it
S3: to the identification level. And that's that's a system similar
S3: to forensic imaging. And there's been quite a bit of
S3: work done from. Universities around the world, in psychology departments,
S3: around people's ability to recognize people in images, and even
S3: in poor quality CCTV or poor quality video. And the
S3: results are quite consistent. The psychologists split it up into
S3: two categories familiar and unfamiliar faces. So if you know
S3: somebody even with poor quality CCTV, the accuracy is quite high.
S3: But if it's an unknown, an unfamiliar face, the error
S3: rate goes up quite significantly, up around 3,040%. So it's
S3: an interesting part of our innate ability to recognize people
S3: when we see them. Familiar faces. We do a pretty
S3: good job at recognizing them in images, even if they're
S3: poor quality.
S2: One of the interesting things, though, is comparing to a fingerprint.
S2: There's only a finite number of whorls, loops, things that
S2: they can find in combination. Surely in a human face
S2: there are so many variables length, distance, um, depth of muscle, fat, tissue.
S2: And then you have possible cosmetic interventions as well. Is
S2: a face like as unique as a fingerprint?
S3: Well, the difference major difference between face and fingerprint is
S3: that faces change. Fingerprints don't. So weight gain, weight loss,
S3: cosmetic surgery as you mentioned, age. That's one of the
S3: things that's made facial identification quite difficult that it's not consistent.
S3: You need a known source and exemplar to make that comparison.
S3: And that exemplar is obviously done sometime in the past.
S3: So depending upon how far in the past it was
S3: may affect the the accuracy. Martin Evison in 2014 wrote
S3: a brilliant paper called The Third Forensics, and he suggested
S3: that forensic identification is entering its third phase. So fingerprints
S3: being the first, DNA being the second method, and faces
S3: identification was going to be the third forensic identifier, but
S3: it just hasn't played out that that way.
S2: You mentioned the database with fingerprints. Facial databases. Do they
S2: help you in terms of helping to identify a person,
S2: in terms of the likelihood that these facial features are
S2: consistent with this? Person in this photograph.
S3: Yeah. So there are some systems out there that the
S3: Australian government are now using for facial identification. And we
S3: see it now on our mobile phones when we sign
S3: deeds and contracts, you can there, there are verification sort
S3: of processes that are using the face as a, as
S3: a form of verification based on your passport photographs or
S3: your license photograph. So that technology certainly coming to play.
S2: That's facial recognition isn't it.
S3: Facial recognition. Yeah. Not identification from a forensic perspective. Yeah.
S3: But but certainly the facial recognition is is playing a
S3: part with facial databases because we, we've been in New
S3: South Wales and other states, we've been collecting biometric data
S3: from our driver's licenses for 15, 20 years now. It's
S3: been quite a while since photo ID has been used
S3: in our driver's licenses. Those authorities, government authorities have been
S3: collecting that. Same with our passport. Our passport now has
S3: biometric information. A passport photograph has biometric information. So the
S3: state actually has as a resource quite a lot of
S3: people's faces in databases. How is the state going to
S3: use that. They've got some legislation at the moment that
S3: allows organisations to use it in those software applications. I
S3: just had a one of my PhD students who finished
S3: a research project looking at whether the facial databases and
S3: the facial recognition software, when you get poor quality CCTV
S3: where you can't really see facial detail. She tested whether
S3: forensic artists could be a transition between the CCTV of
S3: poor quality and the facial recognition software. So an artist
S3: sketch off the images and then the facial database can
S3: search the actual line drawing or the sketch, and she
S3: come up with some very interesting results that said that, yes,
S3: the technology can recognize, um, drawings. And in some aspects
S3: they were better than poor quality CCTV photographs. The artists
S3: are outperformed in in some areas, particularly areas of really
S3: bad angles when there was a sharp angle, not a
S3: normal frontal view, which is, um, straight on which I'm
S3: looking at the camera. Now, that's a normal frontal view,
S3: but any side angles or uh, high angles, which CCTV
S3: often is high, um, the, the artists actually outperformed in
S3: some instances than the photograph. So that was an interesting
S3: experiment that Vanessa, uh, gained a PhD out of.
S2: In terms of what can people do if there are
S2: so many images out there? And I just think how
S2: many selfies are being taken by criminals and non criminals
S2: every single day. There's got to be millions and millions
S2: of of photographs taken and uploaded. So potentially there's a
S2: massive database, a private companies utilizing that database.
S3: Yeah, it's a bit. It's. There is some legislation around
S3: where private enterprise can use software from the federal government,
S3: and they can access certain elements, but they don't access
S3: the database, but they can apply for a recognition search
S3: from different faces. I'm not familiar with the 100% with
S3: the legislation, but this is something that's come over the
S3: last couple of years. It's going to be obviously more
S3: prominent as we move into the AI tool of technology,
S3: I would imagine. I also had an honor student who's
S3: just finished an ex police officer, Tony Caledon, and his
S3: career was working in the police, in the BCI and
S3: also in intelligence and then privately over in private security
S3: before he retired. So he's got a sort of a
S3: background on both of those. And what he found in
S3: his research is these notion of fusion centers going to
S3: occur where surveillance of the of areas are going to
S3: be black box. So with AI being able to interpret
S3: activity rather than if you can imagine a security officer
S3: sitting in front of, you know, 200 screens, the the
S3: amount of detail becomes kind of white noise and detecting
S3: things that are happening is not very easily. Well, in
S3: fusion centers, they're all blacked out. Sort of uses a simple,
S3: oversimplified analogy. They're all blacked out until the AI detects
S3: some suspicious behavior, then it becomes visible, and then the
S3: security agency can then may make a decision on the action.
S3: So it's an interesting concept that Tony kind of discovered
S3: that with fusion centers, you're going to get more surveillance
S3: of the civilians or of the citizens, but more privacy,
S3: which is a bit, you know, sounds contradictory, but, um,
S3: there's some protection of the privacy because it's all black
S3: box until you see someone in a car park looking
S3: into car windows to see if there's anything you know
S3: in there to steal the. I would pick that up
S3: as suspicious activity and then turn on and alert the
S3: security agency to. Then they can make a decision on
S3: what that action is. So the technology is going to
S3: get very clever. Um, but I think it's good in
S3: one way that there thinking about the privacy because we
S3: don't want an over surveillance state. I don't think most
S3: people would want that. But this fusion center technology may
S3: have our interest in in heart, I guess, around privacy.
S3: It'd be interesting to see how it pans out over
S3: the next ten, 15 years.
S2: Well, we've also seen deepfake videos, and this is obviously
S2: a very divisive thing that you can, um, if you
S2: have the technology and the ability you can. Completely alter
S2: someone's face in a video and replace it with someone else's.
S2: For example, at the recent international forensic conference, one of
S2: the forensic scientists had Obama, President Obama. Actually introducing her,
S2: and everyone initially was like, oh, and then 11 or
S2: 12 seconds into it, the mouth didn't sync with the dialogue,
S2: and so we all realized that it was a deep fake.
S2: But just initially there was a room full of forensic
S2: experts who were, oh my gosh, is that actually a
S2: bummer introducing her? And that was the whole point. If
S2: you could even convince a roomful of one of 1500
S2: forensic experts how easy it is to fool the public.
S3: That is very, very worrying. And, you know, can you
S3: trust anything in imaging? That's that's where we might go.
S3: But the filmmaker, Errol Morris, uh, has published a book
S3: called Believing Is Seeing. And I've got a quote from
S3: Morris book. It says photographs provide evidence, but no shortcut
S3: to reality. It is often said that seeing is believing.
S3: But what we do not form our beliefs on the
S3: basis of what we see. Rather, what we see is
S3: often determined by our beliefs. Believing is seeing, not the
S3: other way around. It sort of highlights the ambiguity sometimes
S3: of imaging as evidence. It's what we want to, uh,
S3: believing is seeing the imagery, the fake, the deep fake,
S3: or you know, that it's Obama and you know that
S3: he's talking. So you often would come to the belief
S3: that that's Obama talking.
S2: In terms of having a suspect in custody. We all
S2: know about mug shots. Profiles front on and each profile
S2: can vary too, so I gather they take each side.
S2: Do the police have a right to actually try and
S2: photograph from the same perspective, for example, as the ATM captured,
S2: to try and then superimpose the accused face onto the
S2: evidence that they have and see if that matches.
S3: We've seen this in some cases where anatomists have superimposed
S3: faces onto forensically obtain images. It's it's dangerous. Um. Superimposition can.
S3: Hide something as well as show something. So again, it
S3: can really superimposition can really trick people's brains. So it's
S3: I'm not much of a fan of it. This technology
S3: came out with identification of, of skeletal remains. So they
S3: would get a skull and get a photograph of the
S3: person or the deceased who they think it is, and
S3: then they would superimpose that image onto the skeletal, onto
S3: the skull, and match up certain anatomical points of the
S3: eye sockets and the teeth and, and those type of
S3: things to try to identify the body. And this is
S3: a technique designed before DNA. So DNA is obviously the
S3: the premium method for identification now. But if there's no
S3: DNA to match it to or no maternal DNA with
S3: mitochondrial DNA, this technique I guess, is still valid. If
S3: you talk to a fingerprint expert. What they don't do
S3: is superimposition, fingerprints, and there's a good reason for it
S3: because of the.
S2: Distortion they do on telly all the time.
S3: Yeah, they do a lot of things on tele. Um,
S3: it can be more misleading than give information so side
S3: by side, like for like combination is by a forensic
S3: expert is the method of choice rather than superimposition. It's
S3: too difficult. But image perspective which can change the face
S3: quite a lot. Um and image perspective is. The spice,
S3: how three dimensional objects are now recorded into two dimensional.
S3: And basically, if you got and you'll see this on
S3: a lot of selfies, you know, close up any close
S3: up photographs of people's faces. The image perspective is quite deep.
S3: So you might notice that, you know, the person's nose
S3: seems exaggerated in a very close up photograph. The further
S3: you move away, the flatter the perspective comes. And I've
S3: measured about four meters. After four meters it becomes fairly stable.
S3: So fashion photographers use this quite a lot as well.
S3: This technique, in the sense that, you know, when you're
S3: using people that have this beautiful proportionality of their face
S3: and that's what makes them pretty and attractive and models
S3: what you want to do is a fashion photographer or
S3: a beauty photographer is capture that natural beauty. The approach
S3: to maintaining that natural proportion and beauty is usually shot
S3: on a long focal length lens at a distance, so
S3: so that those proportions and parts of the face are
S3: maintained naturally. As soon as you start bringing the camera
S3: in closer, the proportions of the face, particularly the nose
S3: being closer to the camera, will start to exaggerate and
S3: those proportions must be disrupted. So part of the problem
S3: with superimposition is that you don't often know the distance
S3: between when that CCTV camera you can go and measure it,
S3: which I've done at crime scenes as well. But then
S3: you have to try to reproduce it. And there's a
S3: lot of, um, difficulties with trying that approach. It's not impossible,
S3: but superimposition is is certainly not the way to go
S3: with facial identification. A side by side like for like
S3: is is the method if it's an infrared versus a
S3: color image, that could be problematic because of the differences.
S3: They should be roughly the same angle, normal font size
S3: is the perfect angle, of course, but often that's not
S3: the case in surveillance photography.
S2: What about ease in terms of uniqueness? How reliable is
S2: analysis of ease and comparison in photo?
S3: The term uniqueness is being a bit of a dirty
S3: word in forensics over the last few years, because we've
S3: always claimed that fingerprints are unique. But from a scientific position,
S3: we can't prove that.
S2: Unless you've fingerprinted every single person who's ever lived on
S2: the planet, you.
S3: Can model it. The US government tried to model. Model fingerprint? Statistically,
S3: DNA does it through likelihood ratios. You know, to say
S3: that 1 in 20,000,000 chance of someone having the same DNA.
S3: So it can be modeled statistically. But uniqueness is something
S3: that we don't like to sort of, uh, say, well,
S3: we can say that they, they match or they have
S3: similar characteristics, um, as to satisfy a match or whatever,
S3: but not the concepts of uniqueness. So like fingerprints, there's
S3: a claim that is, ah, unique. But we can't prove
S3: that scientifically. And, you know, when you're comparing side by
S3: side is which is what we can do, you can
S3: say that there are a lot of strong anatomical similarities
S3: between the two ears, and the likelihood of it being
S3: the same is fairly high, but we we don't use
S3: the word uniqueness anymore. Um, that's something we've, we've got
S3: over it took fingerprinting, uh, bureaus quite a, quite a
S3: while to go away from that. And I think they
S3: may still not believe that fingerprints can't be proven. You know, um,
S3: Michael Sachs, uh, us sociologists has written really well on this, uh,
S3: around the, the fallacy of uniqueness and that, you know,
S3: if we're using scientific methods within our forensic analysis, you
S3: can't then come up with this qualitative claim that every fingerprints,
S3: unique or every is unique unless you can prove it scientifically,
S3: you can't really make that claim. And that was the
S3: fallacy of individualization. If you can't prove it scientifically, don't
S3: use it.
S2: With all these variables light, angles, perspectives, distance. How on
S2: earth is anyone actually identified by a photograph? Beyond all
S2: reasonable doubt.
S3: It seems you know, as much as I mentioned Martin
S3: Stevenson's paper, the third forensics, it looked like, you know,
S3: back in 2014 that this was going to be a revelation,
S3: a new way of identifying people with the predominant amount
S3: of imagery in the community, cameras in the community. This
S3: is going to be the the next best thing since
S3: DNA and fingerprints, but it just hasn't eventuated. I think
S3: the facial recognition software and the tools that might be
S3: used in the private sector and the verification of identity,
S3: I think that's that's where facial recognition is going to
S3: really play a part. But I'm not sure whether in
S3: a forensic situation that this form of identification evidence is
S3: going to resonate like the, like the fingerprints and DNA.
S3: I know the AFP's facial team, the last time I
S3: spoke with them, they hadn't gone to court. But they're
S3: working very hard in developing standards and developing training for
S3: their people. They're doing a very good job. But I
S3: think our initial thinking that being able to identify from
S3: it because it is in some way a trace like
S3: fingerprints and DNA left at the scene. But it's not
S3: a real direct trace. It's a visual trace. So there
S3: is some ambiguities and or differences between, I think that
S3: biological trace of a fingerprint or DNA versus a biological
S3: trace from a camera. There are just some, some complexities
S3: that it's just not made it as easy as what
S3: we thought it was. You know, if we time traveled, uh,
S3: 50 years, not even 50 years, probably 20 years, 25
S3: years and say to detect these right in the modern you,
S3: you're going to have this resource where every crime is
S3: going to be recorded by a camera. Do you think
S3: they'll need detectives? And okay, well, of course not, because
S3: there it is. But it hasn't eventuated. Um, identifying people
S3: with difficult.
S2: It sounds to me like photographs are actually circumstantial evidence
S2: as opposed to definitive evidence. And I would ask, and
S2: we actually giving defense teams more to pick holes in
S2: by bringing photography and CCTV into it.
S3: That's a very important element, because what I've seen over the,
S3: in my experience, is the misuse of photographs as well.
S3: And this is this is a problem. I remember being
S3: in a biometric conference and I was on invited on
S3: as a panel of experts and, um, a guy I
S3: have a lot of respect for. Richard Brooke from the
S3: FBI was on that panel as well. And the question
S3: was asked of Richard. Richard was using a lot of
S3: facial identification in, um, in the FBI. Uh, the famous
S3: case that he worked on was the Afghan girl. I
S3: don't know whether you're familiar with Afghan girl, with, uh,
S3: Stephen McCurry. Um, National Geographic, the green eyes. The green eyes. Yeah.
S3: The green eye. Beautiful Afghan. Beautiful. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely stunning.
S3: They went back a few years later and tried to
S3: identify it. And I believe the FBI certainly made the identification.
S3: But it was asked of the panel, particularly Richard, of um,
S3: so what happens if you can't identify them, you know,
S3: so you've got a mugshot and exemplar photographed a source
S3: that you have known, known and known identity. And you've
S3: got a, a still of a, of a face from
S3: CCTV or ATM or a mobile phone, but the experts
S3: just can't identify it because, you know, maybe the quality
S3: isn't there or just it just you just can't identify it.
S3: What do you do? And he said, that's simple. We
S3: just put the two photographs together, paste them on a
S3: board and give them to the jury. And I sort
S3: of went, what do you do? What I said, so
S3: here you are, the FBI, who have all these trained
S3: science scientists and forensic experts trained in facial identification. They
S3: can't make the identification. But what you're asking the jury
S3: is to make that identification for you, because you can't.
S3: That's outrageous. That's that's biasing the evidence in a, in
S3: a in a very big way. And a good friend
S3: of mine, Gary Edmund from the unionist South Wales, he's
S3: position that he I've heard him say quite often is
S3: that particularly with fingerprints fingers fingerprints do the same. Fingerprint
S3: experts will have the exemplar and the fingerprint and the
S3: points of identification. Give that to the jury and they
S3: will see, you know, ten or 20 or 15 points
S3: of identification. The fingerprints. I don't have too much of
S3: a problem with that. But. But Professor Edmond suggests that. Well,
S3: if you've got the expert there, you don't need to
S3: show them that photographic evidence. And I think he's got
S3: a really strong point there that whether showing that sort
S3: of visual aspect to the jury, does it better inform
S3: them or is it influencing them in a wrong way? Another, um,
S3: encounter I had, it was with the New South Wales Police.
S3: I was asked by the chief scientists at the time
S3: to do a review of the forensic forensic photography, a
S3: forensic imaging unit in the New South Wales Police. And
S3: I did that with another AFP senior AFP officer. And
S3: we were shown around the the unit and we went
S3: to this, uh, one room where they had a poster
S3: and there was a CCTV photograph of two people holding
S3: up another two people in a park. I think it
S3: was in King's Cross. So then they had, uh, so
S3: just try to visualise this poster. So this big image
S3: in the middle was the CCTV image of the incident,
S3: a still image. There was then close ups of each
S3: person's head on the left hand side of the right
S3: hand side. Sorry of the poster. Then on the other
S3: opposite side of the poster was the two mug shots
S3: of the people. And I said, well, so what's this
S3: poster for? They said, oh, it's for court. Uh, identification
S3: of the people. Oh, you say you've identified them? Oh, no, no, no,
S3: we can't do that. Um, but we show them these
S3: posters so that the jury can, you know, uh, correlate
S3: between the the two close ups of the faces. So
S3: this is an example of issues I've come across where
S3: it's treating the jury as, uh, pseudo experts by showing
S3: them images. And we all believe we're very visually literate.
S3: We're a community that embellishes images all in everything we do. Even,
S3: you know, we're doing that now. We're recording this on
S3: on a camera, this conversation. So everything we do just
S3: just about is recorded in some visual form. I have
S3: some concerns when photographs are misrepresented to a jury in
S3: a seemingly unbiased, unaltered way for them to make up
S3: their mind. So using photographs, I think can be quite dangerous.
S3: And there's no filter with this at the moment in
S3: the criminal justice system, the judges, uh, that I've come across, uh,
S3: believe that the more information you can give the jury,
S3: the better the jury are to make the right decision.
S3: I certainly agree with that. But whether images can help
S3: or hinder the truth is something that's a bit concerning
S3: when it comes to visual evidence in criminal cases.
S2: There was a case that involved Larry David's show, Curb
S2: Your Enthusiasm, and the role that that played in a
S2: criminal trial. Can you go through that for us?
S3: Sure. Um, I wrote about it in my PhD thesis
S3: many years ago, but it's, um, it's a bit of
S3: a reverse, uh, identification. There was a gang murder, and
S3: one of the witnesses to that gang murder was actually
S3: murdered herself. And the accused of the original murder trial.
S3: His brother was charged with her murder, and he claimed
S3: that it couldn't have been him because he was at
S3: the baseball with his daughter. And he produced the seating
S3: stubs to the police. And they said, well, you could
S3: have got this off anyone. They tried to look it
S3: up with the CCTV cameras of the stadium, and they
S3: saw where his seat was, and they tried to enlarge it,
S3: but it was just too it just didn't allow definition
S3: that they could identify him sitting there with his daughter.
S3: But for some, uh, strange reason, Larry David was shooting,
S3: I think, Curb Your Enthusiasm show. And there was the
S3: accused in the background, sitting in his seat.
S2: With a good quality.
S3: Film. Yeah, broadcast quality film. And they use that. And
S3: of course, they got, um, uh, statements off the producers
S3: of the time and the and the time and date
S3: stamps on the, on the video. Um, and his alibi
S3: then was confirmed that he was at the baseball through
S3: the happened chance of being in the background of Larry
S3: David's show. So quite a quite an interesting.
S2: High definition.
S3: In high definition. Yeah, yeah. And he was telling the truth.
S2: So it can actually be used to exonerate.
S3: It can be used to exonerate. Absolutely. Any forensic evidence
S3: is about the first of all, trying to exonerate innocent
S3: people and secondly, trying to, uh, to convict or use
S3: to in the conviction of perpetrators of crime. But the
S3: primary objective is always to try to eliminate first, not
S3: not identify. Being an academic in forensic science at Western
S3: Sydney University for several years, being one of the founding
S3: academics or the founding academic there. For that course, we
S3: built a crime scene facility with the New South Wales Police,
S3: where students would go through and actually process scenes of crime.
S3: Forensic photography is more of the specialisation, the the enhancement
S3: of the of the evidence. Uh, the understanding reading of
S3: how vision works and how it how it affects the interpretation. Um,
S3: I think that's more about forensic crime scene photography really
S3: is more about recording in a document style, um, in
S3: a vernacular kind of photography, how the scene was found,
S3: items of evidence, murder, weapons, shoe marks and so forth.
S3: There are particular ways that they need to be photographed,
S3: but what a crime scene officer does in the processing
S3: of a scene is document. And they would they would
S3: document in images, usually video or still photography. They would
S3: write contemporaneous notes on where they saw things and how
S3: they found it, and also sketching, which is another visual,
S3: cultural sort of aspect to understanding crime scenes. So crime
S3: scene investigators would do those, those three things. They would
S3: also collect the evidence, but say shoe marks and fingerprints,
S3: items that are going to be analyzed. By other forensic
S3: experts need to be taken in a particular way so
S3: that distortion and artifacts are eliminated. And that's where forensic
S3: photography training has to occur with crime scene investigators. So
S3: they do do some, I guess, forensic photography on site
S3: when it comes to recording, documenting those types of evidence.
S3: But in a whole it's more around just recording the
S3: site as it's found and the critical elements of the site.
S3: They sort of work in a photo narrative form more
S3: so than anything, and they would use filmic techniques. So
S3: for instance, if there was a shoe mark in blood,
S3: they would photograph it using a style of photography, but
S3: in a way that that a filmmaker would approach it.
S3: So you do what we call an establishing shot. So
S3: you do a wide shot to show the location of
S3: the shoe mark in blood, and then you do a
S3: close up shot, which would be the forensic kind of
S3: where you would put a scale down. You would make
S3: sure that it's perpendicular to the subject. You would use
S3: lighting to show that the, the maximum detail of the,
S3: of the shoe mark. So it's very much a filmic
S3: kind of visual narrative that crime scene operatives work on
S3: in combination with their contemporaneous notes. And they use tools
S3: like markers, evidence markers to show and relate the photographs
S3: in the sketch to the contemporaneous notes. That's all a
S3: way of communicating a bloody shoe mark. That could be
S3: a item I found in the the lounge room or whatever,
S3: but that marker that's placed next to the the shoe mark,
S3: that item of evidence is only there really, so that
S3: the contemporaneous notes and the sketches and the photographs all
S3: tie in in a communicative way. And you.
S2: Can get a sense of scale and you can.
S3: Get a sense of scale. So we use linear scales
S3: to do that. Um, and, and, and all sorts of things. Yeah.
S3: And now with drones, you know, you can get aerial
S3: shots as well. Um, New South Wales Police, we were
S3: very big on using photogrammetry as well, where they would
S3: go in and use stereo cameras and record it, particularly for, uh,
S3: motor vehicle accidents particularly, and then reproduce that accurately. So
S3: measurements can be taken from their line drawings very similar
S3: to an old plan of a building. It's they sort
S3: of they can draw scenes in that sort of line sketch,
S3: but it's to scale and things can be measured.
S2: We've actually seen lots of visual illusions, and there's been
S2: so much fighting on the internet about, for example, the
S2: dress there was blue and gold and whatever people would
S2: argue to the death that they were totally different colours
S2: from what someone else was seeing. Can you give us
S2: an example of another visual illusion that people can actually understand?
S2: How our minds can be tricked, even though we're convinced otherwise?
S3: Yeah, there's lots of examples, Cathy. Um, I give a
S3: lecture in forensic photography or forensic criminology subject that I
S3: teach here at the university on how to interpret images.
S3: And basically what I'm trying to show the students is
S3: the ambiguity, how ambiguous a lot of the the vision is.
S3: An example is a horse race, uh, photo finish. You
S3: you would believe that they're in different places of the track,
S3: but in actual fact, the way that it's recorded through
S3: a slot, the horses are at the same location, but
S3: at different time. So in this type of recording, the
S3: variation is the time, not the distance, but our interpretation
S3: is the distance because we see a horse in front
S3: and a horse behind that the horse in in the crossing.
S3: The line first is though is in front of the
S3: horse coming second. But in actual fact, the photo, the
S3: imagery is all taken at the same location. The difference?
S3: There is time. But another great example is a checkerboard
S3: example by, um, a researcher called Edward Allison, who uses
S3: a visual anomaly where there's a if you can vision
S3: a black and white checkerboard or a chessboard like, well,
S3: like we all know, and there's a green cylinder sitting
S3: on the, uh, checkerboard casting a shadow over the checkerboard.
S3: And there are two, uh, squares that Alderson identifies, square
S3: A and square B, and the question is, is, is
S3: the tone of A and B square A and B
S3: the same or different? Now, unlike the dress that has people,
S3: C perceive the colors differently in this experiment, everyone that
S3: I'm aware of sees the two squares as different tones,
S3: blatantly different tones, and they would believe and swear that
S3: they are different tones. But if you were to isolate
S3: everything else and just look at those two squares like
S3: I do in my class, you'll see that that they're
S3: exactly the same tone of gray. I've even use Photoshop
S3: and measured the A square and the B square, and
S3: I get the same RGB value, uh, in both. So empirically,
S3: I've also proven that it's the same tonal range, but
S3: if you see it, uh, you would believe that a
S3: square A and square B is absolutely different tonality. But
S3: the reality is it's the same. And I'll go back
S3: to the Errol Morris quote, believing is seeing. It's not
S3: the other way around. You believe that it's different, but
S3: the facts are they're the same.
S2: I think my brain is just absolutely mashed up now
S2: because I thought photographs were definitive, and now I'm actually
S2: thinking it's all an illusion. Thank you so much, Glenn,
S2: for actually getting us thinking about photographs and reliability and
S2: evidence and facial recognition versus identification. It is so complicated.
S2: Thanks very much for joining us and explaining all of
S2: that today.
S3: You most welcome, Kathy anytime.
S2: Crime Insider's Forensics is a listener. Original production. It's hosted
S2: by me, Catherine Fox, and is produced by Ed Gordon.
S2: Sound Design and imaging is by Link Kelly.